What is Essentialism?

Essentialism, in its most stripped down meaning
refers to the belief that people and/or phenomenon have an underlying and
unchanging 'essence'. I like to work with a definition that refers to any statement
that seeks to close off the possibility of changeable human behaviour. The term
essentialism is commonly used in three main ways.

Firstly it refers to the use of biological,
physiological and, increasingly, genetic, causes as explanations for human social
behaviour. In this case little, if any, explanatory weight is given to psychological,
sociological or cultural explanations. An example would be to argue that men
are more aggressive than women and that this is inevitable due to hormonal differences.
So the intention here is to use biology to argue that a particular social difference
and/or behaviour is unchangeable.

A second use of the term essentialism is
when generalised statements are asserted that make no reference to cross-cultural
differences or previous historical variation. This is also sometimes called
universalism. An example would be to state that men are more visual then women,
in all cultures and at all times. Against this a sociologist or anthropologist
may argue that the way we use our senses, and which ones we prioritise, is very
definately something that varies between cultures and throughout history.

Thirdly, the term essentialism refers to
when in everyday conversation or also in academic writing we make use of unified
concepts. This means when we talk of the experiences, for example, of white
disabled women. Now at first glance this is better than simply making a generalisation
about 'women' or the 'disabled' per se. However even when we introduce a few
levels of specification we still talk in a highly problematic way. In other
words, to use the above example, the experiences of white, disabled, women is
not unified but highly mixed or variable (or 'heterogeneous' to use a longer
word) and is also likely to change over time due to differing economic and cultural
conditions. This third sort of essentialism is tolerated more (certainly in
acdemic writing) than the first two, but still remains problematic.

It is worth bearing in mind that within academic
writing the charge of essentialism is used in a very adversarial way, as an
allegation of the worst crime. Sometimes an essentialist statement may be used
as a political strategy and it is fair to say that critiques of essentialism
do not always delve into the reasons why a particular essentialist assertion
is made. Moreover, the first type of essentialism should not merely be restricted
to biological overdeterminism (the over use of biological explanation for social
behaviour) but also to sociological overdeterminism (when one tries to explain
something solely by recourse to social, as opposed to biological or psychological
explanations). Sociological overdeterminism is also sometimes referred to as
discursive essentialism.

Why have charges of essentialism been made
towards ecofeminism? Some ecofeminists have indeed argued that 'women are closer
to nature than men' or 'more empathic than men'. Why might thay have done this?
In what ways are phrases such as 'Mother Earth' essentialist, are they useful,
or dangerous to use politically? In other words can the feminisation of nature
(and indeed the flipside, the naturalisation of women) that has been the source
of much damaging ideology over recent centuries be re-appropriated as a positive
political discourse for change? I personally doubt this and am rather suspicious
of this strategy, though I am still interested as to why this might be a strategy
for some women. So it is true to say that the 'charge' of essentialism sometimes
levelled against ecofeminism is in a small way justified. However, it is usually
used by mainstream feminism to argue that all ecofeminism positions are essentialist
and that ecofeminism should be ignored as a valid theory of liberation. This
charge is used to silence ecofeminism. [The charge of essentialism is also sometimes
used to silence the arguments of French feminist theorists such as Irigaray,
essentialism may be present but is it a criterion for ignoring everything someone
has to say?]. Any glance around the main feminism introductory texts bears witness
to the silencing of ecofeminism, a silencing that also takes place in the male
dominated environmental philosophy field.

So one has to be very careful with the subject
of essentialism, on all sides! If we delve deeper, as some are, we begin to
see further problems with the whole idea of essentialism. For example, most
charges of essentialism assume that the biological realm is a static one, and
the social, or cultural realm is dynamic. This, for me, is another problematic
dualism and in my current thinking I think that critiques of essentialism (as
well as critiques of critiques of essentialism) will be rewarded if they begin
to think in ways of re-introducing a sense of temporality into what we think
of as 'essence'. The recent history of Western thought has been somewhat atemporal.
We have not wanted to dwell to much upon change as ultimately this means facing
up to our own mortality. I will leave you with that thought for now. Click
here to go back to Ecofeminisms in Process